Parables Of The Opossum Paul

Charming devotions for all ages to read and to share… In a beautiful wooded glen on the side of a mountain lies the little village of Feather Hill. And in the very middle of the village is the Church of the Hollow Stump, where the pastor, the Opossum Paul, and everybody’s favorite Sunday school teacher, Grannie Annie Owl, teach the birds and animals about God and how God wants us to live our lives. Children of all ages will delight in the charming tales told of the characters who live in Feather Hill, while learning valuable lessons about love, forgiveness, and the grace of God.

"Another book on the parables? Why? Because Paul Duke hears possibilities for preaching the parables that the rest of us miss. Duke makes preliminary observations, sketches historical context, pursues literary structure, pauses over how details of the text would fall on the ears of ancient listeners, and offers reflections for preaching. This book would be an ideal basis for a sermon series."--BOOK JACKET.

Parables of Jesus examines Jewish customs during biblical times to reveal lessons on life, living, and walking with the Lord. You’ll encounter the figures that Jesus used in his stories: the unjust judge who neither feared God or man, the self-righteous Pharisee and the humble publican in the temple, the fickle children in the marketplace, the unforgiving servant, and others exhibiting traits as compassion, jealousy, and greed. Pastor Paul Saunders makes the point that Jesus was appalled with the hypocritical nature of Jewish religious leadership. They made a great show of righteousness, but their behavior was corrupt—and Jesus was not afraid to call it out. The parables are brilliant, relevant, pithy, and personally challenging. Jesus uses everyday activities, with which we are all familiar, to illustrate a deeper truth. Although numerous scholars have written about the parables of Jesus, this book takes a fresh approach, looking at them in context and exploring the relevance they have today.

In Blind Evolution?: The Nature of Humanity and the Origin of Life, Professor David Frost challenges the dominant worldview derived from Darwin’s evolutionary theories and perpetuated in Richard Dawkins’s atheistic propaganda for Neo-Darwinism: that our universe has ‘at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil and no good, nothing but blind, pitiless indifference’. Frost deploys recent findings from a range of scientific studies that shake Neo-Darwinism to its foundation. Citing entertaining examples, from the inner workings of a single cell to the animal kingdom at large, from elephants and giraffes to the Japanese pufferfish, Frost maintains that Darwinian premises are wholly inadequate to engage with life or to provide a framework for our experiences of joy and sorrow, the problem of suffering, and the stark realities of good and evil. Reflecting on the nature of existence, Frost points to a mode of human understanding parallel to scientific enquiry through the path of ‘vision’ accessed via the nous (or spiritual intellect). He argues that ‘vision’ is as much essential to our understanding of creation as is scientific enquiry – reality is best approached through a complementary partnership of both.